


Portrait of a Sunken Face

by youbrokemyheart



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Basically Pennywise is not an alien, Canon Rewrite, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Just a killer, M/M, Multi, Suicide mention, The losers remember what happened, no one forgets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26336329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youbrokemyheart/pseuds/youbrokemyheart
Summary: "Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow."- Death is Nothing At All by Henry Scott-Holland---There is something so incredibly shocking about finding your brother dead, and then years later, finding your mother dead in the one place that made her happy. You can hide it for as long as you want, pretend you don't care, move away and try to forget. But everything comes back, everything has a meaning and a purpose. Everyone has a home, even though it doesn't feel like it.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Audra Phillips, Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Kudos: 3





	Portrait of a Sunken Face

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time posting here and honestly posting/writing a fanfiction. but ive had this idea in my head for awhile so i hope you guys like it (: also i hope you guys know that this will have multiple chapters, at least i hope for it to

There was something so mesmerizing about her, about the way she moved her hips when she walked, the way her fingers ran their way through her long red hair. The first thing he noticed about her was the way her long legs crossed over one another while she sat in her chair in the back of their Advanced Lit class on the first day of his sophomore year. They crossed over one another perfectly, her top leg bouncing slightly as the pencil in her hand twisted between her plump lips.

She had caught him staring, her eyebrow quirking upwards, a smile contorting onto her face. He had noticed his cheeks had grown warm and a chill spilled down his spine like the rain that was hitting the windows. She was absolutely mesmerizing.

She was oddly familiar, though. So incredibly familiar that he almost called her the wrong name one night during sex.

Their first time together was awkward and clumsy, not at all helped by the fact that he was somewhat a virgin, and that he was full of alcohol. She was on top of him, and the name he almost said didn’t start with the sound hers did. God. He was a mess, but thank God she didn’t notice him about to spit out a name that wasn’t hers.

Her name was Audra Phillips, and honestly, she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Well, the second prettiest, but he would never let her know that. How awful would that be? To tell her that she didn’t compare to the girl from back home, the girl whose kiss he could still feel linger of her lips, whose voice still echoed in his ears. Jesus Christ, he was still enamored by her. Audra was a close second, like an off-brand purse. You couldn’t tell the difference unless you looked hard enough, studied it close enough.

She was older than him, a senior at NYU, majoring in acting, and minoring in English. She said if acting didn’t work out, she would just become a news reporter. He believed acting would work out. Probably not as well as she wanted to believe, she’d probably make it to at least a B-list celebrity, maybe end up on a daytime soap-opera, but nothing too big named. Yeah, she was pretty, but she wasn’t talented. She didn’t have the quality to be a star, but he wouldn’t tell her that. That would just make her leave him, then what would he do? Run back to Maine, not even knowing if his first time still found herself in their shitty hometown?

He would sometimes imagine that that girl was still there, now working at the same dingy diner her mom had, or maybe the new record store that had popped up towards the end of their senior year of high school. He’d sometimes imagine her meeting him at the train station in Bangor, standing on the platform with a wide smile on her face, in his old sweater he was still so sure she had kept.

Sometimes, he imagined Audra was her, that she had followed him to NYU. That she had started her career in art, even though her dad had told her that she would be nothing if she wanted to go into that career. He had told her she was nothing, and that career was nothing, and that she would just have to come back to him. God. He had always wanted to punch her dad in his face. Even more so on the days, she would show up to school with a black eye, or a busted cheekbone. Her excuses got worse every time. Everyone knew, but no one wanted to point it out.

Bill Denbrough ran his hand through her long red hair, twirling his fingers on the ends, smiling softly as her hair curled gently under his finger’s twisting motion. She really was beautiful, he would always admit that. He could see it better on mornings when he woke up before her, where he’d just stare over at her, watching the sun rays that came in through the blinds dance across her skin. He could see it while she sat reading in his room, or when she was angry and staring out the window from the passenger side of his car he got from his dad as a departing gift the summer before he left for college. Audra’s nose wrinkled when she laughed, her eyebrows furrowed when she was angry. He always wondered what she thought about him, what she saw in him. She could’ve had any guy on campus, any of the guys in any of her classes, but for some reason she chose him.

Her stirring on his chest forced his thoughts to push away, causing him to look down at her with his eyebrow arched. “Morning,” she mumbled sleepily into his skin, kisses being pressed delicately. He just hummed a response, not really saying anything more than that. His lips found the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo as he kissed the top of her head. Coconuts and peaches. It was an odd combination, but one that worked oddly well with her honestly.

Bill watched as she sat up and stretched, flinching when her shoulder made a sickly pop sound. “You do that every morning.” She mumbled softly to him, looking over at him with a small smile. He forced a chuckle, shrugging. “What can I say? It scares me every time that you have old lady joints.”

Audra reached over and flicked his nose, crawling over him so she could get out of bed without forcing him out of it. “I’m going to shower. See you after work?”

He just hummed, watching her make her way to the bathroom. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t going to be there when she got home from her coffee shop job. He also didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t going to be here in their shared apartment that evening either after his classes were done for the day and the campus was closed. To be honest, Bill wasn’t even too sure if the idea he had was a good one, but oh well, when were any of his ideas good ones?

There was a period in his life, right after his brother died, that he made his friends do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. It almost killed all of them, but that was alright, right? What kids didn’t almost die while being with their friends for a whole summer? But as years went on, and their friendships only grew stronger, the ability that he had with them became more apparent. Honestly, he could ask them to murder someone with him, and they probably would do it. There were a few people in his friend group that fought back that summer, said it was a dumb idea, that what they were doing was going to get them killed, and while it almost did, those people didn’t leave.

Trauma bonding is what his therapist would call it. He had only gotten a therapist after his mother died. There’s something so surreal about finding your mother dead in the room that used to bring her so much joy. You see, before everything with little Georgie Denbrough happened, Sharon Denbrough was a piano teacher. She taught piano to those who could afford it, and sometimes, only sometimes, she’d teach a child for free if she felt like they were particularly talented enough; however, that hardly ever happened, because most of the time Bill would find that child’s mother scrubbing his kitchen or bathroom floors as some sort of payment for her child playing piano in the other room. She was playing piano the day Georgie was brought to the house, arm missing, wrapped up in an old quilt by a neighbor from down the street. He had never heard her scream like that before. The best way he could describe it to the therapist his father forced him to see at seventeen was like a mix between a ghost from an old movie, and the scream you make when you’re absolutely terrified, but even then, that didn’t quite fit the way it made his chest tighten. Ever since then, she had locked herself in their piano room. She had hardly let him in there, to begin with. He was forbidden to go into the room, especially during a class, but even more so afterward. It was her space, just like his room was his space. She was entitled to her privacy, just like he was entitled to his. She had a point, and so, Bill grew to hate that room. It was an open concept, two pairs of French doors lead to the room, one pair that came in from the dining room, and one pair that came in from the sitting room (that’s where mothers or fathers sat during the hour-long practice. Bill was also not allowed to sit in that room either.)

But something about that day was different.

He came home after baseball practice, even though he wasn’t very good, it gave him something to do, something to avoid coming home in all honesty. His bag sat down on the table in the kitchen, his shoes tossed haphazardly onto the back porch just before he came into the door. The air in the house was thick like it normally was, but this was a different type of thickness. The one that the house had after Georgie died had become a comfortable, a bearable type of thickness, one that made him feel uncomfortable if it wasn’t there. But this one, God, this one was so thick you could cut it with a knife. His socked feet walked across the linoleum flooring of the kitchen, the kitchen light buzzing annoyingly overhead. The floorboards squeaked underneath his feet as he made his way from the kitchen into the hallway.

“Mama?” He called out.

Bill hadn’t called her that in years, not since he was little, not since 1957. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but his therapist said it was because he had always longed for her to be his “mama” again. Honestly, she never had been. She hadn’t loved him the way a mother should. She had always favored George, she had always favored the kids she saw once a week. Something about him was undesirable, and maybe, just maybe, that’s why he wanted her so badly. He wanted to be wanted by one person.

Her.

He stood in the middle of the sitting room that had now been covered with a thin layer of dust. No one had sat in here in six years. No one. No more mothers, no more fathers, no more annoying kids who got the freshly baked cookies that his mother said he couldn’t have. It was empty. This house was so fucking empty and he wanted to scream. Bill’s blue eyes stared hard at the french doors, trying to see through the semi-sheer curtains that hung on the doors. He could see the piano somewhat, just the shape of it. He could see the hutch that held the sheet music and the fancy plates that they only used for Thanksgiving. He couldn’t remember the last time they used those plates, to be honest. His hand softly touched the doorknob, fingers shaking as it touched the cold brass.

“Mama?” He whispered. “I’m home. Do you want something to eat?”

He couldn’t remember the last time he even saw his mother. For a while there, after his brother died, his mother had been locked up in his parents' room. His dad stayed downstairs in the living room and eventually converted the garage into his own office and bedroom. So it was mainly just Bill and his mother in the actual house. He hadn’t seen her much during those days, only occasionally, when she decided to be a mother to him and make him breakfast, or lunch, or maybe even dinner. It wasn’t that often though.

For the past few years, however, she had started coming downstairs to just sit in the piano room. Sometimes she’d play, but not often. Most of the time she would just play one singular note, just over and over.

He slowly turned the door handle, pulling the door gently. The doors were unlocked, which meant that she had been in here recently. She always locked the piano room, even in her worst mental state. It was like muscle memory.

That’s when he found her, hanging from the ceiling fan, delicately hanging over the piano. He couldn’t remember what he did next. He knew he had to have called his father, or the paramedics because then they were there and taking her away, his father standing behind him on the porch, hand precariously placed onto his shoulder like it didn’t belong there.

A few months later, his father made him go to therapy. That was actually really good for him, very good for him actually. He was able to talk about Georgie, and his friends, then his mom. Come to find out, Bill had attachment issues because he never got to form one with his mother. Well, his mother didn’t have much of an attachment to him. It’s alright though, he was fine now. Well, he liked to pretend he was alright, but that’s okay. That’s all anyone could ask for, just trying, pretending.

Bill climbed into his shitty car, the one his dad had given him as a graduation present, looking at himself in the rear-view mirror. He hadn’t packed much of a bag, just enough to get by for a few days. Wasn’t going to take him long to get there, to get back home. He could tell Audra his dad was sick if she called and asked, but to be honest, he wasn’t sure if his dad was even fine. After graduation, he had just left for college, even though the move-in date wasn’t for another month and a half. He had just wanted out of Derry, to get away from the bad memories.

Now, he was aching to get back.

As he started driving, and his mind was beginning to wander once again like it always did, he wasn’t too sure why he was wanting to go back to Maine. On one hand, he knew he wanted to see Mike again, the kid who said he wouldn’t leave Derry, no matter how much he wanted to. It was easy, to be honest, because Mike only had his mom left, and their relationship was one to be the envy of; so that meant that Mike was honestly too scared to leave her. However, that just proved how good Bill was at controlling his friends, leading his friends to do whatever he wanted. After all, he was the one who asked him to stay in Derry.

But on the second hand, he wanted to see that girl he’d been thinking about for years. The girl who Audra reminded him so much of. The girl who gave him his first kiss, the girl he almost lost his virginity to. He would get to see her, maybe, if she hadn’t moved from Maine. Out of all of his friends, he knew she’d be the one to run away from the shitty little town. She had been sexualized her entire life, looked at nothing more than a temptress. She said that it was because of her red hair, saying that’s what she was told by her father and mother growing up, so of course, Bill believed her. He didn’t really think like that though.

When they stood in the Derry High parking lot, she confessed to him that she was planning on packing everything up the next day and running away, moving across the country to the west coast. She said it was her home, but the only person she knew over there was an estranged Aunt, so he wasn’t too sure if that’s what she was talking about. However, he left before her. He hadn’t told his dad he was leaving, but he had told his friends. They helped him pack the car, and hugged him goodbye. She stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

”I’m gonna miss you, Bill,” she whispered out, tears clogging up her throat. He was making her cry? Jesus, should he leave? It was almost like she could read his mind, pulling away from him to cup his face, using one of her hands to wipe at her eyes. “These are happy tears, I swear. I’m happy for you. You better write to me got it? Send them to Richie’s, I’ll pick up my letters there.”

”Alright Beverly, I promise I will.”

He hadn’t kept up that promise. He had written her a total of three separate times since he had moved. The first time was when he moved in, the second time was when he started classes, and the final time was on Valentine’s Day. That was it. So if she wasn’t in Maine, it’d make sense, she probably thought he hated her.

But how could he hate her? She was amazing, she was everything. She loved him when no one else did, she saw something in him no one else did. She ran her fingers through his hair when he got overwhelmed, she kissed his forehead all the time lovingly.

Beverly was what he wanted his mother to be. Audra was what Beverly was supposed to be. His mother? His mother was gone, she was dead, and she wouldn’t be coming back. She was finally with her favorite son, something she had wanted for years. Good for fucking her.

Hours had passed, the highway was an easy drive, especially this early in the morning. Hardly anyone was on it, and that was alright with him. It made it easier to get back home. Bill took an exit towards Bangor, tapping on the steering wheel gently. He was getting anxious. It’d been almost three years since he left since he had spoken to any of his friends. He wanted to know how they were doing, how their life had gone if they had met any new friends. But he wanted to know why he had a sudden urge to just go back home. He hadn’t wanted to in the past.

Audra had asked at the beginning of them dating if she could go home with him one Christmas break, so she didn’t have to fly back overseas, but he told her he couldn’t go back home. That was a lie, of course, his father would’ve probably liked to have someone there with him in that big open and empty house, but no, he hadn’t wanted to go home then. So why now? What was it about now that made him want to go?

Maybe it was that he was coming closer to his little brother’s death date? Maybe it was because he had passed another one of Georgie’s birthdays without wishing the poor kid a happy birthday? Jesus, he would’ve been what? Sixteen? Yeah, Georgie would’ve been sixteen.

Fuck.

He looked out his window at the scenery passing, waving a bit when a car caught up to him and they managed to lock eyes. That was awkward. He looked forward, hands gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter. He was suddenly nervous, his chest tightening slightly. The closer he was getting back to Derry, the more than summer fled into his mind. They were all eleven and they almost died. All because he wanted so badly to find out who killed his brother because the police sure weren’t doing anything. They were eleven, children, babies. They were all scared, but he was being so tough for his little brother who would no longer get to see fireworks, or read his favorite comics in the newspaper, he would never get to eat his pancake surprise on his birthday. Bill just wanted so fucking badly to be seen by his parents again, so he thought, that maybe, just maybe, if he caught the killer then they would love him again. That his mother would come out of her bedroom and would hug him again. But that didn’t happen. They didn’t catch the killer, they just wound up in the sewers and had gotten lost. He couldn’t even remember now why he had chosen to go into the sewers. He was dumb, so dumb, why did his friends believe him?

Bill pulled into Derry town limits, slowing down when he noticed the big sign reminding the citizens of Derry of a curfew. Had they just put that up? Or had it always been there? He shook his head, turning down the road that leads to his house. He slowed down, noticing a woman on the porch, watering the plants that hung from the ceiling. A little girl played hopscotch on the sidewalk. He put his car in park and got out, just standing behind his door.

“Um, excuse me?” He called up to the woman. She stopped watering, looking down at him with a kind smile.

“Yes?”

“Do you know where the previous owner is?” He wondered. “Um, Zach Denbrough?”

Her hands tucked themselves into her apron pockets as she thought. “I think he moved out of state? I met him when we moved here a few years ago. Why?” Her head tilted, giving him a small frown. “Do you want to come up here and have something to drink?”

Bill shook his head. “Oh, no ma’am, that’s very kind. Thank you. I just knew him, that’s all.” He let out a chuckle, waving a bit, before sliding into his car, shutting the door.

He headed for the Hanlon farm, his fingers gripping the steering wheel again. He hadn’t even realized he was crying until his vision became blurry. He drove most of the way based on muscle memory, pulling up into the Hanlon farm, parking behind the beat-up old truck that he knew mike got for his sixteenth birthday.

That’s when Bill let out a sob, covering his face to muffle them. His dad was gone? Didn’t think to tell him? Holy fuck, he literally had no one in his life. Georgie was gone. His mother was gone. Now his father?

He went to hit the dashboard, but someone knocking at the window scared him half to death. He wiped his eyes and turned to look at whoever was standing at his window.

Mike. It was Mike.

Almost instantly, he opened the door and climbed out, wrapping his arms around his friend tightly. He had missed him. He smelled the same that he always had, like pumpkin and apples, a bit like sweat, but it was nice. Comforting. It was home.

Bill was home, no matter if he wasn’t at the same house he grew up in, no matter that his family was no longer here because Mike was his family. Mike was comforting, Mike was home.

Soon, hopefully, the others would be home too, then he wouldn’t feel as lonely.


End file.
